A letter came in the mail that said my 7-year-old was going to be suspended from school for 20 days. But what could my little four-foot girl with floppy hair and a mischievous smile have done?
The letter said she hadn’t gotten her vaccinations. The suspension order was scathing: “I am not satisfied that the Student has completed, has commenced and will complete, or will commence and complete the prescribed program of immunizations in relation to the disease(s) indicated above.”
I was outraged.
I called the doctor’s office. I asked for an appointment. The office receptionist started asking questions.
I told her Toronto Public Health (TPH) sent us a letter in the mail asking for her vaccinations. The doctor’s office put me on hold, checked her records, and sure enough my daughter actually had completed them all.
The records just hadn’t been sent to TPH. “That’s up to parents, not the doctor’s office,” the receptionist told me.
I couldn’t get the records by email or through their online portal because I wasn’t a patient. They could only send them by mail. But the TPH letter said I only had 15 days to get the records in.
I looked out for that letter every day that week. When I got it the following Monday, I put it on the table to fill out early the next morning. I woke up at 5 am to get those records to public health the fastest way possible, through their online portal.
I felt like a nurse, or an immunologist, but with no training. I inspected each word of each disease, each brand name medication and each lot number on the doctor’s chart. I didn’t know what any of that meant. But I needed to match those names with the names on the TPH portal.
Was Pneumo conjugate-13 the same as Pneu-C-13? Was Rotavirus the same as Rota-5? Doubts ran through my mind. I was going to get this wrong!
More than an hour had passed as I struggled with these types of deviations. I was getting late to get my child to school on time. I finished up with the TPH portal hoping I got the immunization details right.
But I knew that even though I called the doctor’s office, got her records, and input the vaccination record into the TPH portal, that this wasn’t over.
Toronto Public Health had sent their letter to the school principal. When I went to pick up my daughter from school that week, a letter was stuffed in her backpack. There was a message on a yellow, fluorescent strip of paper. “It has come to our attention that your child/ren may not be in compliance with the Ontario Immunization of School Pupils Acts (ISPA).”
I went to the office and asked what I was supposed to do to let the school know that her records were up to date. The kind assistant said it wasn’t them, or the school, it was Toronto Public Health. They would let the school know what happens next closer to the suspension dates.
I felt stranded on anti-vaxxer island. Waiting for TPH to realize that I sent in my daughter’s records.
But I’m not the only one on this island.
Only 25 per cent of students have up-to-date vaccination records. This is especially true among elementary school students, according to Toronto Public Health.
The vaccination record-keeping system just isn’t working. Even the head of Toronto Public Health herself says it’s “not the ideal process.”
Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Michelle Murti would prefer that health providers input vaccination records straight into a central provincial or national registry.
Apparently, doctors have been calling on the province to establish this for decades.
Obviously, the registry isn’t a priority for the provincial government. So, Ontario’s system keeps creating a province of anti-vaxxers, like me and my vaccinated daughter.
On paper anyways.
